AN EDUCATION ISSUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 156, 4 July 1922, Page 5

AN EDUCATION ISSUE.

GOVE-RNMDBHT DEFEAT.

THE ,<s_J___^6_S STAKE.

(From Onr Own corresnonaeat.)

LO-SDON, May "lT."

Tbe Geddes axe- is a-boomerang. Forged as an'.«onmy' *.eapop wherewith the Government was to Secure lasarine support, its' edge is now-turned, night by 151 votes to 148 the Government wis defeated Geddes proposal, '"'"';'.'.' . h Thi question at stake is one which has its spMial appeal to the D08..WIt hasto do with-economy in the alloca tion of public money to education, and it__ a mark of the more enlightened view now held in England that the proposal to make this economy was opposed 't»y 4 ome of the Diehard*, the Tory reactionaries, who- regard- education as unnecessary to any save themselves. The ! Geddes report on the Education Department, a document filled with a spirit of contempt for education, recommended that teachers' superannuation should be made contingent on their contributing towards it.

In principle a contributory scheme oi pensions is fair enough. What has roused this complaisant House oi Commons is the iact that the Geddes application is unfair.. After long and protracted work after the Armistice a committee named after its chairman, the Burnham Committee, issued a report defining the scales of salaries payable in schools eligible for Government gran..*. This scale was higher than those in force at the time—and the New Zealand authorities know that .they are lower than the Dominion scale, as witness their in arranging exchange schemes, owing, to the fact that Dominion teachers to exchange into the English - grade corresponding to their own would have to accept a lower salary than they are entitled to in New Zealand. The Burnham si-ale in fact did for the teaching profession what had been done in other callings, had raised it from a level admittedly even before the war much too low. to one higher, and more likely to attract to it the better brains so essential to a lorwaiu looking nation. This Burnham scale was accepted by the teaching profession ana one basis or acceptance was.that pensions payable to those coning under it were to be non-contributory. Sir Frederick Banbury, M.P., a Reading Diehard, and one of the sternes economists of the. moment, refused to take the Government view because he had never broken.a business contract in his life, and he was now asked to do so. Lord Robert Cecil's contribution to the debate was that "no economy was worth while if it involved a charge of breach of faith.*'

When the Geddes proposal, of a 5_ per 'cent levy on teachcre'-salariesfor superannuation was first made known the profession in Scotland had the bright idea of having the position of their superannuation funds investigated by an actuary, and Scotland, Glasgow in particular, breeds the 'beet, actuaries in the world. His report to tbe teaching profession was that a three per cent levy was quite sufficient to meet all the claims that would fall on the super-, annuation funds, and he advised them to refuse any levy higher than three per cent, and even in that case to demand benefits in addition to those to whk-h tkejr are at present tatitled.